A "Pharmacy" from the 18th Century
Homeopathy is a healing system developed in the 18th century by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Looking for a mild therapy that could stimulate the "vital energy" to restore and maintain health, he believed the substances that cause disease could, when administered in tiny amounts, provoke a healing response.
Over decades, Hahnemann built a pharmacy of thousands of "remedies" derived from natural substances such as herbs, minerals and animal products. Homeopathy quickly built a great popular appeal: By the mid 1800s, thousands of homeopathic doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and medical schools appeared worldwide.
Homeopathy faded from popularity in the United States beginning in the early 1900s as a result of successful efforts by conventional medicine to limit access to it, and later with the advent of antibiotics and other effective pharmaceuticals. Today, increased interest in alternative therapies has led to a revival. Now homeopathic remedies are sold at health food and drugstores in the form of tinctures, creams, and most often as tiny tablets that dissolve under the tongue. Today’s homeopaths often use a computer to keep track of the many remedies.
By Judith Horstman
